The Design Process
I love designing gardens big or tiny whether it’s a garden from scratch at a new-build or enhancing a stale or neglected garden that needs a new lease of life. A garden that is practical to use yet exciting to look at all year is my prime focus whether you want something bold, something quirky – something contemporary and slick or a romantic cottage-style retreat.
While some clients come looking for a complete re-imagining of their garden - walls, patios, hedges - everything, others simply want to re-imagine the planted parts of their space or to make their existing garden easier to care for with new, dependable planting that has the wow-factor and brings in wildlife.
1 Consultation
To kick off, I will visit to chat things through with you – gather pictures and notes. At this stage I’m looking to capture exactly what you are hoping to achieve. Understanding your tastes, style and preferences is essential so I’ll send you a list of things to think through before we meet such as your preferred colours and any essential new features you want to incorporate in the garden plus gathering together pictures from books or magazines about the sort of thing you like. Don’t worry if you don’t have strong ideas or opinions I can come up with plenty of inspiration. An initial hour-long visit locally costs just £30 and I will then send you a quote to prepare either a garden design concept plan , detailed planting plans or both depending on your requirements.
2 Concept Plan
For a PLANTING DESIGN only, we skip this stage but For a FULL GARDEN DESIGN I will come back to survey the garden properly and prepare a proposal including all the features and preferences you have requested. This plan will show the shapes and positions of all the major elements such as proposed paths, patios, pergolas, water features and trees with some broad suggestions about planting and materials. Sometimes clients like me to produce two alternatives and with further discussion we can come up with the preferred final layout. Where there are complex changes in level or features such as pergolas/water features and buildings it might be necessary to have a professional survey and specialist construction drawings done.
3 Planting Plan & Plant List
With modest garden areas I can move straight to designing a bespoke, detailed planting plan for your garden borders complete with a separate plant list which makes sourcing and ordering everything easy online. Often I can supply the more unusual or hard to source plants at a competitive price myself. An additional service is a maintenance guide for every plant so you know exactly how to look after your new garden through the seasons. With large areas I might have to revisit the site to survey and measure areas and get a better feel of your site and your preferences before I prepare the plan. For a FULL GARDEN DESIGN this planting plan is provided as an overlay on the concept plan which together, provide you with the finished Master Plan.
4 Appointing a landscaper
At this stage, for those having a full garden design, I can help you find good landscapers who can quote on constructing any hard landscape features, planting of trees and hedges and preparing flower beds ready for planting. To maintain the quality and integrity of the design I usually like to pop in through construction to oversee the work of any landscaper that you choose. It’s good to be on hand as needed to discuss any queries that may crop up during construction. If you are just having planting plans prepared there will be no major building involved and you can do as much or as little of the planting and bed preparation as you wish.
5 Planting service
To get spacings right and tweak the design, clients often like me to return to lay-out or even assist in planting the final planted areas. I can then supply any of the planting from my nursery if you choose that but can advise you also about the best places to source other plants or even arrange the sourcing and ordering so you don’t have to bother.
6 Aftercare service
In the months and years that follow if you choose to look after the garden yourself, there will inevitably be questions and tweaks to make. I love to work alongside my clients long-term taking the garden forwards and showing you tips and tricks to help you get better at caring for your special space. See the COACHING tab for more details of this.